One of the bands out there that is in the midst of the reunion fever right now is Sunny Day Real Estate, a band that was around in the mid to late 90s and had one superbly spectacular debut album called Diary and then a few more albums and about a hundred break ups after that. Well they reunited for this tour earlier this year and fortunately came through Dallas last Monday night for some early 90s rock to get on, and it was some great shit.

I had never seen these guys before live despite having listened to their albums a bunch in high school and some in college as well. They have a very epic sound and a lot of quiet/loud/quiet kinds of moments in their songs. Anyway, it is a largely visceral kind of music that the band brings on the albums so the question was could they bring that back to the stage after so long off, and they certainly did not disappoint. The Granada was nice and super loud, and the waves of distortion and grungey chords washed over the audience from beginning to end. They hit 99% on stuff from Diary and LP2, with only one song (I think) from their 3rd album, How It Feels to Be Something On. And that was what I and I’m guessing everyone else in the audience wanted to hear.

All of the greats from Diary just killed it here, “Seven”, “In Circles”, “Shadows” all were total home runs in the set list. Despite the huge anticipation and expectation of them blasting it out on those songs, they did not disappoint. Then the song that really blew the roof off of it was when they hit “48″ towards the end of the set. Epic and greatness.

Jeremy Enigk basically looked like his head was about to explode from the energy he was putting into the vocals, and the drummer put that same effort into his playing of the skins, and it was one of those where everyone in the band was majorly into it. They even played one new song and promised us that they would ‘be back’, which is awesome, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

It was awesome to see these guys after having listened to Diary and the other album probably 10-15 years ago and finally hearing them come to life on stage in front of me. They were really tight for a band that has been out of it for so long, and especially for a band that has broken up so many times. If you listened to these guys back in the day this is a great tour they are on right now and it is definitely worth checking out. I would be very curious to see if they do put out any new material also and that would be interesting to see. They have still got the chops and can still knock out an awesome live show, and really, the songs speak for themselves in that they are 90s alternative rock classics that really never get old and still can rock your face off.

Sunny Day Real Estate – 48 – From Diary
Sunny Day Real Estate – Friday – From LP2